The game has been out less than a week and I have to say it has absorbed quite a bit of my free time. One of my co-workers has been playing with me a lot online and together we’re pretty hard to beat. On more than one occasion my fiance has had to work extra hard to pry me away from the PS3.

My Thoughts

I have to say I was a little skeptical about this game. I was always a huge fan of the Infinity Ward games (particularly Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2) but the new team at Infinity Ward hasn’t impressed me that much. That said, this game removed all doubt. The online multiplayer has been revamped and is better than ever. While I still miss certain features from the Modern Warfare series, I welcome the new changes.

I haven’t played the campaign at all, so I can’t comment on that although I’ve heard its really cool. I’ve focused strictly on the multiplayer at this point. Typically my fiance plays the single player portions long before I do. In my opinion, the campaign is just a bonus feature in these games. Most of them last less than 5 hours and while they’re usually fun and impressive, I prefer spending my time climbing through the ranks online.

Online, I focus on playing as a sniper. I have gotten very good over the years and my friends hate to play against me. This game is very sniper-friendly, so I enjoy it a lot. There are open lanes on just about every map, unlike previous games where certain maps just didn’t fare well for long range shooting. I can play well using just about any type of weapon, but my slow and steady play style is better suited to using a weapon that often requires patience to master.

Becoming the Ghillie Monster

On Nov 7th, just before midnight, just two days after the game released, I unlocked the ghillie suit for my characters. My performance as a sniper in the game has increased exponentially. The graphics in the game are extremely good and the ghille suit makes it very easy to blend into the environment. I’ve had many people run right past me or struggle to see me, simply because I was wearing the suit. What I’m saying is that it is well worth the effort to get it, and I’m not looking forward to the future when every sniper has it.

In past games, the ghillie suit was typically given to players after they completed certain challenges (several hundred “one-shot kills” I believe), so long as they equipped a sniper rifle as their primary weapon. This game allows you to equip it to any character, but its a bit more difficult to acquire.

To get the ghillie suit, you need to have the “chrome barrel” attachment on your sniper rifle and complete the 3 chrome barrel challenges. The first is 100 kills, the second is 250, and the third is 500. So the total you have to get is 850 kills using the chrome barrel. Not an easy feat by itself.

However, this game is also unique in that you don’t have access to every challenge at once. In previous games you unlocked more challenges as you leveled up. In this one, you’re given a certain amount in each category and they only change if you spend points you’ve earned or wait the 2 weeks between sets. So in order to get the ghillie suit, you also have to make sure you have the chrome barrel challenges open in the Operations menu.

My suggestion for unlocking the ghillie suit, if you choose to do so, is get rid of all other loadouts that don’t contain a sniper rifle with a chrome barrel. Doing this will force you to play as a sniper (which is possible on every map) and you’ll develop the play style you have to have instead of flipping back and forth and trying to maintain different skills.

By default you start with 3 loadouts available. I used one with an ACOG scope and the other two with Variable Zoom scopes. Variable zoom lets you play well on most of the maps and the ACOG gives you the flexibility you need on smaller or more urban maps. Set the perks and equipment up for how you like to play (I like perks that hide me and equipment that protects me from behind) and you should be good to go.

Likes

There are a lot of things I like about this game so I’ll just focus on the things I like the most. Since I haven’t played the campaign yet, this will focus only on the online multiplayer portion.

I really like that they’ve added game types. I particularly like the addition of Infected. I remember playing something like that in Halo once at a friends house. Its a lot of fun if you play with a group of friends. Cranked is also pretty neat. I’ve only played a few times but its different and I like that they tried to add something instead of relying on only what worked in the past.

The maps are really cool. It takes a while to memorize the maps and until then its just a lot of running around like you’re lost. Once you figure it out though they all have a lot of unique features. My favorites by far are Warhawk and Octane since they have something to offer everyone from snipers to those guys with SMGs.

I think they balanced the weapons more. From the time I’ve spent with the game it seems the weapons have been a little more balanced this time and I like that. Other people may disagree but I still have nightmares from the first Black Ops where nobody used anything but sub machine guns because they were so powerful.

Dislikes

There are only a few things I don’t like about this game and they’re easy to get past. During the first few hours I had a tough time with creating a class. The addition of so many perks and the fact that depending on what specialty you give your character changes which perks you receive early made it a bit confusing. It was quite a change from previous versions. After a few hours though it got easier to figure out and now I have no problem at all (though I still prefer the older create a class systems).

While playing a match, the statistics screen (brought up with the select button on the PS3) has been moved. Instead of being in the center of the screen, its now smaller and at the top right. The benefit is that it can be left up while you play, but the downside is that its smaller and harder to read.

Muting players online. This used to be easy from the statistic screen. You simply highlighted a player and pushed the mute button. Now you have to open the pause menu and select mute players. At that point its pretty much the same, highlight a player and push mute. Unfortunately it takes longer to do while playing and took a while to discover. That meant I had to sit there listening to chipmunks and 13 year olds cuss back and forth the whole time.

They changed the challenges. I always thought the challenge system they had was really good. I don’t feel like the changes they made to that part of the game improved the experience at all.

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of the online portion of past Call of Duty games, Ghosts will not disappoint. My complaints about the game are minor and not worth worrying about (I’m just one of those people who hate change). The game is well worth the $60 price tag. If you don’t like that they release a slightly different version every year just to make money, then don’t buy it. Its not significantly better than past games, and I definitely wont be trading my old ones in. But I can say with absolute certainty that when I play a COD game during the next year it will be Ghosts.